Elder Scheidt in Sapporo, Japan

5.24.2017

Sorry for my lack of quality emails. No excuses I'm just getting lazy. However, I always get motivated when I see my buddy Dallin still sending funny emails despite the fact he's been out 3 weeks longer than me. I will not be taken down.

Well, to be honest not a lot happened this week, so maybe this would have been a better week to skip the email. Oh well. I'm already writing so bear with it.

This week I got a migraine and was knocked out most of the week. Not much more needed to be said than that lol. Talked to a specialist and he told me that I am what they call migraines. It's hereditary and nothing much I can do without medicine. Told me to just stick it out and get the medicine when I'm home lol. Funny guy I caught up a lot on my sleep and for the first time in 22ish months I felt really refreshed and lively again lol. Sleep is magical.

Let's see.... did anything else happen this week.... hmmmmmm

It was my birthday on Sunday and lots of people made that day very special. Not sure if it's because of how nice people are or because they felt a feeling of obligation. You see my birthday is on the first week of the month of May meaning that I have my birthday on fast Sunday once every 7 years.

(Okay some people reading this are not members (the majority) and thus don't understand fast Sundays....---> in our church we choose to not eat two meals on the first Sunday of every month. We have many reasons including: wanting to show our love and commitment to God's commandments, to become more humble, receive more blessings, etc...) there is a very brief summary of what it is.

If you understand nothing more just keep in mind I couldn't eat until dinner time (for us missionaries 8:00 or 9:00 at night). Never more have I wanted to pound cake in my face than the day I was restricted since 6:30am haha.

Well, it's been a while, but fasting when you get two cakes made for you is extremely difficult. It's okay though because I pounded basically a full cake that night :)

I'm enjoying life here and am really trying to soak up the rest of the time I have here.As a buddy of mine once taught me in a time of need: "we always need to be raising the bar, so that we don't recede in our progression" Thanks Elder Hymas :)

Anyways, thanks for the emails, love, and support.

Hope you have a great week![Trying to learn breakdancing in the apartment (Enjoy!)]

Hello everyone! Sorry about my lack of quality emails and I guess the quantity has been pretty low too, but..... I'm going to do my best to really send good quality emails until the end of my mission.

Transfer calls came and I already left Kushiro and came to my new area in Sapporo. It is called atsubetsu and has the biggest ward in all of Hokkaido. I'm super excited to work with the members here and really get as much work done as I can before I head home.

My apartment is right next to the newly dedicated Sapporo temple and I get walk by it every day. it is such a privilege. The view from our apartment window is just magnificent.

Shoot this email is turning boring like I didn't want it to lol oh well....

I want to make this week's email awesome, but to be honest I just did a lot of stuff with transfers and most of the week consisted of getting used to my new area/ meeting the ward/ etc...

There was a wedding reception one of the first days here and it was a good chance to talk to a lot of people and get to know members and non members. I even talked to a kid who was one of our investigators a couple months back in Kushiro. Apparently his sister was in the atsubetsu ward and he went down for the wedding. Nice to catch up with him and hopefully he will start to listen to the lessons a little bit more seriously and see the blessings that he can receive.

I've recently had the amazing privilege of being able to do a lot of workshops to a huge variety of missionaries. I get to share why I love this gospel, how we can become more effective missionaries, mypersonal testimony, etc... it's been such a privilege and is really strengthening my testimony a lot.

Shout-out to my homegirl Meggie on her birthday!! (Meggie wrote this, not Steven... he forgot about her birthday... ;) )

Hello everyone. I don't really remember a whole lot from last week(I actually do, I'm just too lazy to try and remember what I did), but luckily I have my schedule right here with me and I will go ahead and give a weekly update of what I did.

Monday: we had a normal preparation day of shopping and eating sushi. Got a migraine later that night and decided to hit the pillow at 7ish and woke up at 6:30 the next morning fine lol

Tuesday: spent the whole day knocking doors looking for people to teach and no body really listened. It's okay though because things are good over here and we were inside a building when it started pouring snow lol. It could've been worse. I used to hate the long housing hours, but now I use it to memorize hymns in Japanese from house to house and really work on being more humble and patient.

Wednesday: we had his awesome miracle! Found this guy named makoto SAN doing the same thing we do every day.... knocking doors yo. Lol. Anyways, this guy let us in he first time we met him and we were
actually able to met him 2 more times this week. He has his own religion and doesn't really have a desire to change religions, but I know the spirit will soften his heart. He is seriously so sick. Please pray for him!

Thursday: we also have this investigator couple (not married, but live together) who are just so busy that they can never seem to meet, but always come to English class. We decided to make pancakes and eggs for them and asked them to skip dinner and come to the church early (before English class) so we can eat together and talk. It was way fun to eat with them, and then we were able to teach lesson 1. We taught the full lesson 1 a lot this week and it was an awesome week of testifying through the spirit.

Friday: kind of boring. Made a plan to eat ice cream with a less active at the church because it was his birthday. Wanted him to make the step of coming back to the church building again. He stood us up :/ lol we still ate ice cream haha

Saturday: we had an activity where my companion and I make pancakes, eggs, sausage, etc... (an American breakfast) while the members mark up and write their testimonies in a bunch of book of Mormons we ordered. It was way sad because I called and texted everyone and only one member came in the beginning. I literally got 10-20 replies about how the members couldn't go and not a single person said they could. However, three more members came at the very end and we were able to fill out a lot of book of Mormons and have a good time.

Sunday: taught makoto SAN again and I'm hoping things go very well for him.

Sorry for the boring day by day. In my free time right before bed I have been doing two things. Reading lots of general conference talks and trying to master the advanced method of the Rubix cube. Got my
record down to 38 seconds last night.

Have a great week!

[Us during district training meeting (not my comp. but a guy in my apartment)]

3.28.2017

Look at my life man that's lessons on lessons on lessons. Sorry for the big Sean reference.

Hello everyone! This week we had lots of splits with other missionaries, but on top of that we literally had so many awesome miracles that I want to write a little bit about.First off, I didn't write an email last week so no one knows about this but I learned, once again, the importance of inviting people.

We have this investigator named kuriki SAN that my last companion and I found about 3-4 weeks ago that seemed kind of strong but can only meet on weekends. He is in a thing called jietai, which is basically just like he japanese military service. He spends his weekends with his family and I don't want to interrupt that precious time, but felt a prompting to call and invite him to church. He said he would talk with his family and it seemed to be pretty weak to be honest. Sorry for my lack of faith. Well, he came with his wife and their 3 daughters. The ward just loved them because there are basically no families in this ward and everyone fellowshipped them very very nicely. They seemed to really have a good time, but the daughters had a blast. We are going to try and work through them lol

The other miracle occurred on Friday night while my companion and I were knocking doors from 10-2 in the morning. We weren't finding anyone and it seemed to be a waste of time. To be honest, we weren't in the very nicest area either and it didn't seem like people would listen. We decided to move area just enough to separate from where we were and my comp. felt a prompting to go housing in this gross looking, old white building. I've learned enough on my mission to know to follow promptings even when you feel like they might be wrong. Goodchoice elder Scheidt! Well we found someone!

Not just someone, but we found a less active named sister saitou who had been less active for about 30-35 years. She had a problem with the word of wisdom and didn't feel clean at church, so she stopped coming. Well. She was finally able to overcome this problem a little while ago and had thought about coming to church a lot over the past 35 years. She just never had the push to come back and so she didn't.

We found her and she came to our activity on Saturday and asked to meet with the branch president to start the repentance process. She then came to church the next day and all the older members remembered her and literally everyone was crying, hugging, etc... it was such a touching moment on my mission. She's literally already an active member again. It is so awesome!

On top of that, another less active came back to church who had cancer and hasn't been in over 20-25 years. People eat her right up and the whole branch just seemed to have so much love.

My companion and I were so happy and it was such an awesome moment to watch these people relive the happiness of the gospel. I'm grateful for the experiences I have out here and they help me grow closer and closer to my savior every day.

1. There are about 1.9 million people that live in the Japanese city of Sapporo, the 4th largest city in Japan, and the largest city on the island of Hokkaido, the most northern island of the Japanese archipelago.

2. The name Sapporo comes from the Ainu language words Sat Poro Pet, translated as “dry, great river”.

3. With moderately warm summers, Sapporo is known for its heavy winter snowfalls, receiving an average of 630 cm or 248 inches of snow per year, one of the few cities worldwide with this much snow.

4. Hosts the annual Sapporo Snow Festival, bringing in more than 2 million tourists worldwide.

5. Sapporo includes a few different mountains and rivers, the mountains being Mount Teine, Maruyama, and Mount Moiwa. The rivers include Toyohira River, Ishikari River, and the Sosei River.

6. Sapporo hosted the 1972 Winter Olympics.

7. The city of Sapporo is one of the main tourist attractions in Japan, with more than 14 million visitors per year.

8. For cuisine, Sapporo is the birthplace for miso ramen, the popular ramen noodle dish using miso. Other dishes include soup curry, fresh seafood, and different types of sweets.

9 There are many parks in Sapporo, including Odori Park and Moerenuma Park.